


Pride and Pretense

by awickedwind



Category: SKAM (TV)
Genre: Enemies to Lovers, Ex-Stepbrothers, Kind of..., M/M, Mental Health Issues, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, moderate angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-16 19:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13060704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awickedwind/pseuds/awickedwind
Summary: Isak is good at a lot of things: Biology, throwing ragers, pulling chicks, and constantly disappointing his do-gooder ex-stepbrother, Even. All of which Isak is perfectly happy with (sort of) until Even moves back in and their butting heads threatens the fragile facade Isak has worked so hard to construct.Very loosely inspired by Clueless.





	Pride and Pretense

  

It was all going really well until Even showed up.

 

Okay, so maybe “well” was subjective. Someone had definitely broken some overpriced vase of his father’s, and one of Eva’s friends had thrown up in the perfectly manicured hedges out front, and Isak was about to hook up with yet another girl who was beautiful and soft and smelled like fruity perfume and was precisely _nothing_ that he wanted. 

 

But for most guys Isak’s age, throwing a house party and hooking up with hot girls was pretty damn good. Run of the mill almost, which is exactly what he wanted ( _needed_ ) to be.

 

But just as he was about to throw the boys out of the cramped bathroom and spend enough time swapping spit with...Elsa...Emelie...Whats-Her-Face to keep his player cred solid for at least the next few weeks, his older stepbrother pushed through the slightly ajar door.

 

Well, _ex_ -stepbrother technically, but for all the judgment on Even’s face, he might as well have been Isak’s fucking dad. Like, the kind that actually gives a shit and makes speeches on expectations and values. 

 

Even gave him a long look before smoothing out the wrinkle in his forehead-- that only appeared when he was talking to Isak-- and turned a more guileless expression on the only girl in the room.

 

“Hi,” Even said, with that sweet smile that made grandmothers swoon. “Emma, right?”

 

Fuck. How did he do that? He couldn’t have been outside the door for more than a minute. Isak crossed his arms and waited. In the mirror, he caught the expressions of his friends, the way their eyes volleyed from Isak to Even and back again, like watching a tennis match that was starting to pick up. If it had been anyone else to burst through the door, they probably would’ve groaned in commiseration and given the guy shit for cock-blocking, but it was _Even_. Even who sent Jonas links to progressive zines, and shared music recs with Mahdi, and more than tolerated Magnus, for fuck’s sake. 

 

His friends also seemed to highly enjoy Isak’s every barbed interaction with Even, so now, half-drunk and half-high and half hanging out of the bathtub, they looked to be settling in for a different kind of show. Isak rolled his eyes. 

 

“I think one of your friends is downstairs looking for you,” Even continued.

 

Emma just blinked her big doe eyes at him, confused and even a little dazed, not at all dissimilar to the way she’d been looking at Isak a few minutes ago. But her face quickly transformed into a coy smile. “Okay, thanks,” she said, followed by a giggle, for God knows what reason.

 

But of course, Isak couldn’t blame her for taking less than 30 seconds to forget about his existence. If she wanted to hook up with some rich blond kid, here was the 2.0 version: taller, older, _actually_ charming (when he wanted to be) and eyes that sparkled with sincerity, like one of those Hummel figurines Isak’s mom had collected. It was sickening really, but it’s not like Isak would pretend the understand the whims of girls.

 

Even stepped further into the bathroom and gestured politely for her to pass him by. She gave him a look like he had just rescued a kitten instead of like, made up a lie and then moved a foot to shoo her out the door so he could lecture Isak on his behavior, yet again. Real fucking saint, Even Bech Næsheim.

 

Even closed the door behind her and then fixed a stern glare on Isak.

 

“Can they be dismissed too?” Isak gestured to the boys in the bathtub. “Or will this sermon be directed at all of us?”

 

“Isak--”

 

“Drinking, smoking weed”--Isak ticked off the offenses one by one on his fingers--“letting the house get trashed, hooking up with chicks...” 

 

“To be fair,” Magnus cut in, “none of us has hooked up with a chick yet.”

 

“Not tonight,” Jonas corrected, adjusting the completely unnecessary sunglasses on his face. “But some of us have actually hooked up with one, you know, in our lifetimes.”

 

Madhi guffawed and Magnus let out an offended squeak.

 

“Isak.” Even’s deep voice, as always, penetrated through the background noise. Steady and cool as water-- if water could be really fucking condescending. “I heard what you said to her.”

 

“What?” Isak asked with an indifferent shrug. Truth be told, he could barely remember what he had said to her. It hadn’t mattered. It never did. And the less it seemed to matter, the more it seemed to do the trick. Fuck if he knew, but Magnus tried harder than all of them combined and pulled exactly zero chicks, so something in Isak’s method was working. And he didn’t miss the irony in that.

 

“You told her she looked like a thirteen-year-old boy.”

 

“Who’s really a girl though,” Madhi muttered, head tilting back to lean against the shower tiles.

 

Isak and Even ignored him.

 

“Do you really need to insult a girl in order to get into her pants?”

 

“No,” Isak said, and waited for the almost gratified look to settle on Even’s face before he continued, “but it seems to work a lot quicker.”

 

Even’s expression turned patently unamused, a look Isak was more than familiar with, but still settled unnaturally on his usually mobile, happy face. And if Even wanted to keep hanging around, _uninvited_ , and project all these expectations onto Isak just so he could lecture him when he failed, that was Even’s fucking prerogative. But Isak wanted no part.

 

“Or it _would_ have worked, but you barged in, so thanks for that.”

 

“You’re welcome. Now you’re not hooking up with yet another chick you don’t give a shit about”-- it was true, and it was hardly a shocking statement to anyone in the room, but it struck so near an artery that Isak suppressed a flinch--“and she’s free to find some guy who actually cares and doesn’t neg her.”

 

Even crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the door, his face so placid and near to self-satisfied that Isak wanted to shake him.

 

“Um,” Isak started, face scrunching in disbelief, “she’s probably downstairs as we speak sucking face with the next random dude she found whose name she can’t remember. What the fuck fairytale do you live in?”

 

“What’s ‘neg’?” Magnus interrupted what was sure to be a long discourse on the nature of female agency followed by some idealistic bullshit about good people existing in this world and finding each other and pretty much all manner of nonsense that didn’t belong at high school parties where the best of human nature was hoping your friends didn’t let you choke to death on your own vomit.

 

“It--” Even visibly shifted gears and turned to face Magnus with a world of patience. “It’s when a guy-- or anyone really, it’s not limited to gender, such as it is--”

 

“Jesus Christ,” Isak muttered.

 

Even didn’t look at him, but Isak could see his jaw clench briefly and something about the sight was profoundly satisfying.

 

“It’s when someone says something negative to undermine a person’s confidence, then follows it with a compliment when they’re feeling vulnerable.”

 

“Oh my god!” Magnus crowed. “That’s genius. And it actually worked! Isak called her beautiful and she was all over him.”

 

Even turned to face Isak again, ignoring the way Magnus started extolling the virtues of this method to his friends. Maybe Even was already sick of his lecture. Or maybe he could only focus on saving one corrupt soul at a time, and Isak, yet again, was the lucky recipient of this attention.

 

Even lifted an eyebrow, waiting.

 

“I wasn’t trying to neg her,” he said, hating the defensiveness that crept into his voice. “She wasn’t giving me the time of the day, so I said something stupid to get her attention. I didn’t expect it to work. I sure as fuck didn’t expect her to want to hook up with me. What do you want me to do?”

 

He waited for Even’s response, likely something perfectly worded and patronizing with a side of well-meaning kindness, the combination of which made Isak want to crawl out of his skin every time. Crawl out of it like a hermit crab until he found a new shell and was utterly unrecognizable to everyone he knew, especially himself.

 

But Even simply looked at him. The blue of his eyes was difficult to make out under the harsh fluorescents of the bathroom but they were, as always, one of the most striking features of a striking face. But he looked tired. Maybe from being woken up in the middle of the night to a house party his dumbass barely-relation was throwing. Or maybe for some other reason-- some reason that had caused him to move back in a week ago with Isak’s father’s blessing, despite the fact that Even was supposed to be at university and his mom had been divorced from Isak’s dad for almost two years now.

 

Isak’s nose twitched and he wiped the back of his hand across it, sniffing in a way that felt too loud even though it was likely drowned out by the white noise of his still-chattering friends.

 

Even blinked, straightened, and instead of leaving the room as Isak expected, he took two steps closer to Isak.

 

Isak’s heart pounded and he glanced up at Even, the way he rarely had to do with anyone else.

 

“I just think you’re better than that,” Even said softly, and Isak felt it like a knife in his spleen.

 

_I’m really not_ , he wanted to say. But it was late and he was high and sleep-deprived and somehow he knew he wouldn’t be able to affect the glib off-handedness he wanted to.

 

So he just shrugged, avoided eyes that were all too perceptive, and shouldered his way out of the bathroom.

 

Upstairs in his bedroom, in a house that was too big for him and his dad and even all the ghosts of wives past, Isak could barely hear the party raging downstairs. He could curl up in his giant bed and be as small as he wanted to be.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to write this fic for months and a version of this scene for almost a year, so thank you to all the friends who encouraged me! 
> 
> I likely won't be able to update this until after the holidays, but I'll try to get on a fairly regular schedule after that. And for what it's worth, I've never abandoned a fic-- I don't blame any readers for being wary of starting new WIPs in a fandom devoid of new content (hold on, there's a branch in my eye), but I have every intention of finishing this. 
> 
> Oh, and if you're still reading, the "loose" associations with Clueless (and with Jane Austen's Emma really) are that Isak and Even are ex-step brothers and their parents were married for a short time just a few years ago. Also, Isak thinks Even is a judgmental do-gooder, and Even thinks Isak is shallow and immature. Neither of them will start talking like Valley Girls, it pains me to say, but I'll try to get Isak into some yellow plaid. :)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
